. . . a man incapable of building a high quality staff to help him run his administration.

The quality of a President's staff is critically important to his decision making. President Obama had a staff of such low quality it resulted in the shocking chaos we see in the world today.

For example, President Obama's feckless policy in Libya has resulted in the metastization of militant radical islam through out much of northern, and central Africa. The Middle East, and the Near East are in incredible turmoil.

Military spending is increasing, a sure sign of the breakdown of the Pax Americana which has successfully maintained a more peaceful world since 1945.

"What’s forgotten among all the grousing by President Obama and Donald Trump about ‘free riding’ allies is this basic fact of international life: the Pax Americana was intended to suppress global geopolitical and military competition by providing a framework for international security. That benefitted the world by making countries safer at a lower cost and by assuring people that their national defense and access to world trade and markets did not require them to build huge military establishments."

No one is willing to rely on the assurance that America will provide a framework of international security.

While Walter Russell Mead is correct that the kvetching about free riders is over the top, it is also true that Americans are becoming tired of continually saving the world at our own cost, having the rest of the world plow their peace dividend (the money they didn't have to spend to achieve peace) into social programs, and then lecture us about how we need to toe the social welfare line. We paid billions to rebuild those countries after WWII, we paid billions more to protect them, since 1945. We created the Pax Americana, a massive and costly effort to keep the world but especially the Europeans, and Asians from murdering tens of millions more of their own. And what do we get?

Pissing and moaning like adult children still living in their parents basement. They are so militarily incompetent, they cannot project power from Europe to Europe (the Balkans in the 1990s), or Libya, or Syria. Such efforts require a force mostly comprised of the US. They free ride on medical treatments, procedural advancements, new devices, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, they have created societies so uninteresting and lackluster, no one within them wants to have babies. They simply want to consume whatever they can before they die. If Europe wants to slowly die through demographic suicide, I am not sure I am concerned about their forward security.

The President could prod these countries for changes which would likely reinvigorate them, but he will not. He is an inexperienced fool who does not understand the responsibility inherent in the office.

His policies reflect this, and these interviews with his former Secretaries of Defense confirm it. These interviews are deeply shocking. They reveal a man who would be at home in a pot fueled freshman bull session, but completely adrift in the real world, and even worse in the presidency.